Colby Minifie's Ashley Barrett is one of the more interesting characters in the universe of Eric Kripke's The Boys in that, even as she's consistently risen through the ranks of Vought International's corporate and political hiearchy, she's done so despite being in a constant state of fear — and frequently danger as well. Going from Publicist to Senior Vice President of Hero Management to CEO and, most recently, to Vice President of the United States, Ashley's star has continued to rise.
And so what if she has a second face growing out of the back of her head to show for it these days?
That last development is the result of her injecting herself with some Compound V in last season's finale, in a desperate attempt to avoid Homelander's wrath. For Minifie, that moment was reflective of one of the keys to playing the character — the question of how much she's in control of her own destiny.
"In Season 4, Sage is basically like, 'You just are the appearance of a CEO,' so she's basically a puppet," Minifie told me. "And Ashley has always been struggling with those puppet strings, I think. She's very good at her job. She's really smart. And she likes power, and she likes being the face of something, but she actually wants to be able to make some choices. And she hasn't been able to do that for a long time. Homelander's been the puppeteer."
Now that she has that V coursing through her veins — which gave her not just a second face, but also telepathic abilities — the question is how much Ashley can exert herself in this fifth and final season of the show. Make no mistake, she's still a puppet of Homelander (Antony Starr) and Sage (Susan Heyward), even if she is VP, not to mention now married to the massively popular church leader/Supe known as Oh Father (Daveed Diggs). But as always, she's plotting…
"Even with this added little spice of having some superpowers, she's still struggling with how to manage Vought," says the actress. "The chaos is increasing as always, and so she's always in the position of having to deal with that."
Erin Moriarty, who plays Starlight/Annie January, points out how dangerous Ashley's day to day has always been: "The crazy thing about Ashley is every single moment you basically have alongside Homelander is life or death. Every single moment. Because you see how erratic he is and how just in a moment someone can step out of line and then he just can blast them and kill them immediately if he's triggered. He's like a little emotionally reactive baby, right? He can blast anyone at any moment in time. So you could be having a trivial conversation with him and you're just dead. Every little moment is life or death for you."
I asked Minifie if injecting the Compound V was one of the first acts of bravery we've seen the character commit, but she doesn't see it that way. Simply surviving around the Supes day in and day out is notable, she says.
"I think there are a lot of moments of acts of bravery on Ashley's part," she continues. "There's a lot of stuff where she has to wrangle these children at all times. And so she's constantly having to manage a huge amount of people. And I think that takes some special guts to have that job. … But I do think that choice [of taking the V] was both one of strength and one of — it came out of fear. She was afraid she was going to die and she was like, 'Fuck it. This is the only way that I see how to deal with my future.'"
And certainly Ashley couldn't have seen where that future would take her, as she's now one heartbeat away from being the most powerful person in America… well, the second most powerful after Homelander, that is. How will she use that power in the final batch of episodes of The Boys Season 5? We'll know soon enough.
The Boys' fifth and final season is dropping new episodes on Prime Video every Wednesday.
Talk to Scott Collura @scottcollura.bsky.social, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!
